Your Right to Know

ALLIANCE, Ohio – Gov. John Kasich said “there’s no one thing” a governor can do to rein in
college costs, but as he rattled off some items he said his administration has implemented to
combat the issue he concluded that “a whole series of things helps.”

“One of the worst things you can do is you go to school, you’re lost, you never get a degree,
you ring up debt and you have nothing to show for it,” Kasich said in an interview with
The Dispatch. “We changed all of that. Now, if you go to school, they have all the
incentives in the world to produce at graduation.

“I’ve talked to the private schools, talked to the public schools, if you don’t bend the cost
curve at some point people are going to take on-line education, and it might be cheaper in some
cases.”

Kasich was responding to questions posed by
The Dispatch following a press conference earlier today by his 2014 opponent, Democratic
nominee Ed FitzGerald,
about
college affordability.

FitzGerald proposed $100 for every kindergartner in Ohio that goes into a college savings
account and a dramatic expansion of Ohio College Opportunity Grants that were cut by Kasich’s
predecessor, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.

Kasich, in keeping with his tradition of not mentioning FitzGerald’s name or responding
directly to him, said, “I don’t know anything about the political charges” but added that his
administration had put some new money into the opportunity grants.

“The last group of people had a sense that you should use your Pell Grant dollars before you
use your state dollars and you should use your state dollars in the four-year schools,” Kasich
said, referring to Strickland. “I think that was a pretty good approach.”

Kasich spoke Wednesday to the Buckeye Girls State conference at the University of Mount Union
– where hundreds of high school seniors go every year to learn politics, government, and leadership
for a week. Following his speech, Kasich ceremonially signed House Bill 487 – the education
mid-biennial review – which includes a provision that makes it easier for high school students to
gain college credits in high school.

The Republican said the provision will help keep college costs down. He also cited tuition
caps he’s signed into law, construction reform that makes college building projects cheaper, and
the tying of state funding for colleges to graduation rates as further examples of things he’s done
in that area.

“Are there creative things we can do with student loans? We look at that all the time,”
Kasich said.

He also said Gordon Gee, formerly Ohio State University’s president who now serves in the
same role at West Virginia, would produce a report this fall with recommendations on how to lower
the cost of going to school.

Where Kasich said all this – a private college about 15 miles east of Canton – it would cost
$37,190 to live on campus and go to school this coming year, according to the university’s website.